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ANNALES DE LA GUERRE 73 [Main Title]

Summary: French newsreel of the Second Battle of the Marne, Western Front, late July-early August 1918.

Description: The Tardenois offensive, starts with the bombardment of Chassins (?). Oulchy-la-Ville and Oulchy-le-Château, captured virtually undamaged by 41st Division. British soldiers of 34th Division rest by a first aid post inside the village. German 77mm field guns captured, one with its shield shattered, others buried under rubble. Near Grand-Rozoy German prisoners bring wounded of British 34th Division back on stretchers. Soissons, shortly after its capture on 2nd August with the signs for the German officers' club still in place. An old couple who stayed through the occupation talk with French troops. A kitchen garden belonging to the German 43rd Artillery Regiment is raided by French troops ignoring the signs forbidding this. The soldiers pose with the marrows and cucumbers they have stolen. A German aeroplane, too damaged to identify but with Maltese Cross markings, crashed behind the front lines. A US Signal Corps film showing a German aeroplane in the process of crashing. The aeroplane, probably an Albatros CV, is wrecked but the pilot survives with a head wound. French troops surround the plane, the pilot is carried off and the French pilot who shot him down poses beside the wreck. At Villers Cotterêts General Mangin shows President Poincaré a display of captured German 77mm field guns, 105mm howitzers, 155mm howitzers and some machine guns. The film ends with a portrait shot of Marshal Foch.